


under bright stars burning (we will make our own ending)

by TheoMiller



Category: Knight & Rogue - Hilari Bell
Genre: Fluff, Past Relationship(s), dub!con - Fisk/Jack, past Fisk/Lucy, underage - Fisk/Jack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-27
Updated: 2014-04-27
Packaged: 2018-01-21 01:56:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1533428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheoMiller/pseuds/TheoMiller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fisk keeps expecting there to be a last time.</p>
<p>Or, the one where I draw deliberate non-parallels between Jack and Michael.</p>
            </blockquote>





	under bright stars burning (we will make our own ending)

**Author's Note:**

> ......I have no excuses for this. None.

Fisk pretended to tie his boot, eyes burning with his attempt to hold back tears.

“Hey, kid,” Jack said. “I think it’s already tied.”

He froze, not wanting to look up and let Jack see him cry, but not wanting to confirm it anyway by continuing to fake-tie his laces.

“It’s okay,” said Jack, coming to kneel in front of Fisk, pushing his hands out of the way and deftly untying his boot. “This is a really good way to hide tears, or your face if you don’t want to be recognized, but you gotta untie it first. If you tie ‘em right, you can undo them pretty quickly, and it’ll still be secure otherwise. Watch.”

Fisk stared at Jack’s slim fingers as he carefully tied a knot, and blinked to clear his eyes. “Thanks,” he said in a voice that made him wince with how watery it sounded.

“Try it on your other shoe,” Jack said, and untied the other one.

While Fisk slowly tried to replicate the knot, he could feel Jack studying him. “What happened?” Jack said softly. “Is it your sister again?”

“No, it’s just—” Fisk broke off and sighed. “It’s this girl.”

“Ah,” said Jack, knowingly.

“She – I really liked her, and now she says… It doesn’t matter.”

Warm hands rested on his knees. “Hey,” said Jack. “You don’t need her, kid. You’re a winner now.” Jack’s hand slid higher up his thighs, and Fisk looked up, eyes widening, starting to say something.

“Shh,” said Jack, even as he undid the ties on Fisk’s breeches with the same featherlight touch and quick movements he’d shown the laces on his boots. “This is a crime, too you know,” he said. “Of course, that law applies mostly to noblemen. No one cares if people like us pass on the name. No Gifts.”

“You want to… with me?” Fisk said, blankly.

“Things get messy if you sleep around while on the job. Angry brothers and fathers and uncles trying to avenge their honor. So there are some things we have to take care of ourselves."

Fisk hesitated, and then nodded.

X-x-X-x-X

"Was that... okay?" Fisk said quietly, when Jack was lounging on his bed with an air of satisfaction.

"You did fine, kid," said Jack, with that little half smirk.

Fisk didn't ask if it was normal to feel hollow. He just gathered his clothes and got ready to go home.

X-x-X-x-X

It happened a few more times, quick fumbles in whatever room Jack finds, discreet and hot as hell, and they didn't get caught, but Fisk had a feeling Max suspected.

He was almost positive Max suspected, actually, when his brother-in-law offered him the money. After he turned the money down, he went back to the inn where Jack was staying and said next to nothing while he quickly prepared himself - not well enough, he realized later, when he got an infection - and half-ordered, half-begged Jack to fuck him.

It's hard to feel empty when you're on hands and knees with hot breath against the nape of your neck and hands fisted in your hair.

X-x-X-x-X

Despite all the sleeping together they did, Fisk never did end up, y'know, asleep with Jack. Not in the same bed.

X-x-X-x-X

Fisk should've known something was up when Jack pinned him to the wall of their shared room, when he plundered Fisk's mouth with his tongue as easily as any burglary job (though less careful and quiet, more desperate and rough, than any job), when he left trails of bruising kisses down Fisk's chest, when he did all kinds unspeakable things to Fisk on every surface of the room, with little care for quiet or telltale marks.

Fisk was sated, edging towards exhausted, when Jack finally stopped. He used his partner's chest as a pillow, their legs tangled together, and fell asleep to fingers carding through his hair and Jack murmuring, "You're a winner, kid."

He half woke when his feet were being shifted, but Jack murmured "shh, kid, it's okay," and he went back to sleep.

When he next woke, it was to the sheriff's men and Jack was long gone, leaving Fisk to take the fall for the botched job.

X-x-X-x-X

After Michael makes it apparent that he prefers sentiment attached to sex, Fisk figures him for a lost cause. But somehow he ends up staying with the lunatic, and becoming his best friend, and Fisk tries the "might as well take care of it ourselves" line, only for Michael to rest a hand on Fisk's shoulder and say, "You deserve better, squire."

Fisk is perturbed for a while, but doesn't bring it up until he's tipsy and it's so late it's early and he and Michael are sprawled out on their bed rolls on a stifling summer night, a conversation that he giveaway no preface to, just says "I'm pretty sure you're the one who'd be settling, Noble Sir" into the still air beneath the twin moons.

"Hmm?" Michael says.

"You said I deserve a better person than you. To have, you know, sex with."

"Oh," says Michael, and Fisk doesn't need to be able to see the knight to know he's gone a bit pink. "I meant... well, yeah, that. But also that you deserve to have... _carnal relations_... with someone you care about. Someone you want to be with. Not someone just who's convenient."

That just sounds preposterous to Fisk, who snorts and says, "I don't have anyone but you."

There's a long silence. Then, "I'm sorry," Michael says.

"Don't be dumb," Fisk retorts, "you're the only one who wants me around anyway."

"Your sisters would love to have you home with them," Michael argues.

"They wouldn’t know what to do with me,” says Fisk. “I barely know anything about them these days, I have a criminal past, and you know I would get bored. Plus, Max and the sheriff would chase me out if I tried.”

Michael rolls over onto his side to face Fisk. “What would you do, if I weren’t here? Return to being a con? Settle down? Travel?”

“Definitely return to cons,” Fisk says.

“Liar,” Michael accuses. “Seriously.”

Fisk shifts, as if he can escape the weight of Michael’s gaze. “I don’t know. I don’t think about it. I generally figure that if you die doing something stupid, I’ll be right behind you and it’ll kill me too. It’s just how my luck runs.”

“I don’t know what I’d do,” says Michael, with a quiet intensity and something approaching a catch in his voice. “But we oughtn’t dwell on that. So, tell me who the sort of woman you would like to bed, if you had your pick of the land.”

“I’m not sure I would pick a woman,” Fisk hedges, and he hears Michael’s surprised huff of breath but plows on, “but I’m really not picky. Reasonably attractive, I guess, and recently washed.”

Michael chuckles. “Recently washed is a deal-breaker for me, too,” he says.

“What’s your ideal woman? Wait, no, hang on, let me guess: reddish gold hair, soft features, wide blue eyes, named something like Rose… Rosalie…”

“’Twas pretty pathetic, was it not?” Michael says, and Fisk rolls to face him.

“Nah,” he tells the knight. “I could see the appeal. So if Rosamund’s not the ideal lady for the good knight, who would be?”

“’Twould have to be someone smart,” says Michael. “And someone who would travel with me. And survive my adventures—someone who stays by my side even when I have terrible ideas, but ‘tis best if that person knows when to tell me I am being a lunatic. I would want someone whose strengths complimented mine, instead of someone who is too similar to me. I would not wish to be bored. And truly, ‘twould be my preference for there to be genuine affection. More than affection, I should hope.” His voice is wistful.

Fisk’s throat is dry. He clears his throat and says, “I think we’re both out of luck.”

“Mayhap,” Michael murmurs, and Fisk can see the moonlight reflected in his eyes, making them glint as they study Fisk’s face. “I think… that is to say, I had hoped that I had found someone.”

“Really?” says Fisk, who had always assumed that Rosamund was Michael’s first love and all that doe-eyed ballad stuff. “Tell me about her.”

“’Twas not a woman.”

His breath catches in his throat as Michael continues, “he was my friend. My first friend – only one, really. He was sarcastic, and cynical, and guarded, and kinder than I gave him credit for. His touch was feather-light, his sense of direction uncanny, and he could sew and fight with equal skill. He loved books. I lost him once, when we first met, in a new town. I found him in a bookstore, reading the foreword of a ballad cycle. I ought to have known then. I ought to have known, several times over, but I do tend towards obliviousness.”

“You sentimental bastard,” Fisk breathes, and reaches across the stretch of grass between his bedroll and Michael’s. “I… would choose you, too.”

Michael grips Fisk’s hand in his slim fingers. Fisk takes a shuddering breath, and Michael whispers “sleep”, and he does his best to comply.

When he wakes up, he finds Michael curled up with True, who’s snoring quietly, and it’s much less humid. There are still fingers tangled with his. He goes back to sleep.

X-x-X-x-X

Fisk goes into the town to buy bread, since Michael would probably get them chased off by angry townspeople or roped up into some crazy drama. Possibly both. It’s a nice day, but Michael says they should stay in the campsite rather than risk the horses overheating.

When he returns, bringing a couple of apples from a nearby tree along with the bread, Michael has the bedrolls pushed together with a few blankets spread across them, and the knight is watching True is chasing a moth, while the horses graze. Chant knickers at Fisk when he passes, and Michael turns to beam at him.

“Are we hosting a picnic?” He says, nodding to the blankets.

Michael grins. “Mayhap.”

And that’s how Fisk ends up trading slow, sweet kisses with Michael on the side of a hill. When he slides lower and starts in on Michael’s breeches, a hand slides into his hair and makes him pause. “I want to do this with you,” he assures Michael.

There’s a pause where Michael still looks like he’s going to ask if he’s certain. But then, “So do I,” Michael tells him.

X-x-X-x-X

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Michael asks, for about the billionth time.

Fisk rolls his eyes. “I’ve been taking care of my own libido for years now, Michael, calm down.”

“But ‘tis expected that one reciprocates,” Michael frets.

“Michael,” he says. “Next time.”

Michael beams, and Fisk reckons Michael doesn’t feel hollow. He figures Michael has never been normal.

X-x-X-x-X

The next few times are less hesitant, but Michael still moves slowly, like he wants to memorise Fisk’s entire body. But that sort of thinking makes Fisk’s chest ache with something he can’t quite identify, so he pretends it’s just that Michael likes to be thorough. He discovers Michael is ticklish, and they end up bumping heads a few times, and more often than not have to pause to laugh. They still snipe at each other, even when they’re wrapped up in each other and kissing between each retort.

Michael insists on having Fisk on his back, facing him, when Fisk approaches him with a half-used bottle of oil he’d bought from the herbalist earlier that day. They make camp in a little grove and tie the horses and True up a little ways away so that they have some privacy. The knight murmurs things he must’ve learnt from particularly sappy ballads into Fisk’s skin and clings to Fisk when he climaxes.

X-x-X-x-X

They’re discreet in towns, but when it’s just them out in the open air, Michael lays out their bedrolls together and Fisk usually finds himself curled up against the knight, who makes a fairly good pillow despite being skinny. Michael finds it funny that Fisk likes to cuddle. Fisk tells him to shut up.

X-x-X-x-X

Fisk keeps expecting there to be a last time. Certainly he expects it after he tells Michael about the other things Fisk and Jack had gotten up to, back in the day, and he sees the way Michael’s spine goes rigid and his eyes glitter with cold fury and his jaw sets. But then Michael is pulling Fisk into his arms and murmuring _you deserve better_ and _he took advantage of you_ and _I’ll never use you like that_ , and Fisk absolutely does not break down and sob while Michael runs a soothing hand up and down his spine.

He’s exhausted, but Michael makes him drink a cup of water before he pulls Fisk into bed and curls up around him, nose buried in Fisk’s hair, legs tangled together, and fingers entwined with Fisk’s where his arm is draped over Fisk’s waist. “I love you,” Michael says quietly.

He wakes up to True sleeping on his feet, and Michael gone. Before he can panic, he smells smoke and fish, and rolls over to find Michael has already caught their breakfast. “Hey,” Fisk says, sleepily.

Michael smiles and says, “Hey.”

X-x-X-x-X

After a year of fighting with her father to get there, Kathy writes a letter to Fisk from University, where she had painstakingly destroyed every aquilas recipe she could find. She’s studying the history of the realm, and she plans to join Justin in the High Liege’s court, working on law codes.

X-x-X-x-X

In an unusually sneaky move, Michael writes Judith to tell her that her brother is fine… and that there will soon be a position open to her under the High Liege’s first female legal advisor.

X-x-X-x-X

A carefully worded clause of a law written by Kathryn Sevenson declares any and all sexual acts between consenting adults legal, and extended the law’s protection to any who are unfairly treated due to previous consensual sexual acts. It is made official before Michael gets his first grey hair.

X-x-X-x-X

Redemption with blood becomes all but obsolete in cases that spill no blood, including con artistry. The law is called the Squire’s Law. No-one asks why.

X-x-X-x-X

A law extending “basic human decency” to unredeemed people passes the next year.

X-x-X-x-X

The High Liege himself knights Michael, and offers to have him declared redeemed and the tattoos stripped away. Michael elects to keep them to--well, to be honest, the honourable reason Michael gives is so ridiculous and incomprehensible that Fisk doesn't really remember what he says.

X-x-X-x-X

Fisk is forty when the Knight’s Guild becomes officially recognized. It takes one letter from Judith to get the Guild to accept women as well as men.

Michael gleefully teaches morality, fencing, and a rather haphazard course on doing odd jobs well into his seventies. Fisk teaches disguise and investigating, as well as covering a list of ‘ridiculous things you should never, ever do’, which (coincidentally, of course) are things Michael has done.

(The first female knight to successfully complete the training and join the Guild uses magica ink to add _fall in love with your squire_ to the list. Fisk leaves it there.)


End file.
